Software:Gears of War

Short description: Third-person shooter video game series

This page is about the franchise. For the video game, see Gears of War (video game). For other uses, see Gears of War (disambiguation).

Gears of War
Genre(s)	Third-person shooter
Developer(s)	Epic Games The Coalition People Can Fly Splash Damage Mediatonic
Publisher(s)	Xbox Game Studios
Creator(s)	Cliff Bleszinski
Platform(s)	Xbox 360 Microsoft Windows Xbox One iOS Xbox Series X/S PlayStation 5
First release	Gears of War November 7, 2006
Latest release	Software:Gears of War: Reloaded August 26, 2025
Spin-offs	Software:Gears of War: Judgment Gears Pop! Gears Tactics

Gears of War (also referred to as Gears) is a media franchise centered on a series of video games created by Epic Games, developed and managed by The Coalition, and owned and published by Xbox Game Studios. The franchise is best known for its third-person shooter video games, which has been supplemented by spin-off video game titles, a DC comic book series, eight novels, a board game adaptation and various merchandise.

The original trilogy focuses on the conflict between humanity and the subterranean reptilian humanoid known as the Locust Horde on the world of Sera. The first installment, Gears of War, was released on November 7, 2006, for the Xbox 360. The game follows protagonist Marcus Fenix, a soldier in the Coalition of Ordered Governments tasked to lead a last-ditch effort to destroy the Locust Horde and save humanity. Two subsequent titles, Gears of War 2 (2008) and Gears of War 3 (2011), featured a three-way conflict between humanity, the Locust Horde and their mutated counterparts, the Lambent. Software:Gears of War: Judgment, a spin-off prequel to the series' first title, was released in 2013; it focuses on Damon Baird, one of Fenix's squad-mates. Software:Gears of War: Ultimate Edition was released for the Xbox One and Microsoft Windows between August 2015 to March 2016. The fourth installment in the main series, Gears of War 4, is set 25 years after Gears of War 3 and follows Marcus Fenix's son, JD and his friends as they battle security forces deployed by a totalitarian COG government as well as the Swarm, a reconstituted version of the Locust Horde that once again threatens humanity. Gears 5 (2019) is the direct sequel to Gears of War 4 and revolves around Kait Diaz, a friend of JD, who embarks on an adventure to learn the truth about her past and the connections between her history and the Locust Horde.

Gears of War was developed by Epic Games. Cliff Bleszinski, who has previously worked on Epic's Unreal Tournament games, served as the series' lead game designer for the first three installments. He was inspired by gameplay elements from Resident Evil 4. Kill Switch, and Bionic Commando. The series was guided by Rod Fergusson, the executive producer and director of development of Epic Games until 2012. The first four installments of the Gears of War series used a modified version of the Unreal Engine 3 engine. In January 2014, Microsoft acquired rights to the franchise from Epic Games. Canadian studio The Coalition developed Gears of War 4, which was released on October 11, 2016, for the Xbox One and Windows 10. A sequel, Gears 5, was released in September 2019. All six installments in Gears of War featured several multiplayer modes that allowed players to compete against each other or team-up to battle AI opponents on Xbox Live.

Gears of War became one of the best-selling franchises for the Xbox 360. The series puts emphasis on cover-based combat, in which players can use objects to avoid gunfire or safely engage enemies. The Gears of War games have been amongst the most popular and most played titles on Xbox Live.

Plot

The Gears of War series takes place on Sera, a fictional Earth-like planet. Human civilization develops and endures a millennia-long conflict that leaves humanity on the brink of extinction. Sera's leaders broker an era of peace that ushers scientific advancements and a cultural renaissance. Humanity's population booms and demands more energy than fossil fuel, nuclear power, and renewable energy can provide. Sera's scientists then discover Imulsion, a naturally occurring liquid substance found in the underground caverns called "the Hollow", can be refined into a potent energy source. Imulsion solves the planet's energy crisis, but ultimately creates great economic disparity between nations with direct access to Imulsion and those nations without, leading them into financial turmoil.

Sera's citizens balkanize into two warring factions: the Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG) and Union of Independent Republics (UIR). The ensuing 79-year strife, known as the Pendulum Wars, consumes millions of lives with both sides, locked in a virtual stalemate. The UIR develops the "Hammer of Dawn" (HoD), a system of satellites capable of delivering precise and destructive orbital-to-surface laser strikes. A contingent of COG commandos, led by Marcus Fenix, Dominic Santiago, and Victor Hoffman launch a daring raid on a UIR stronghold in Aspho Fields to steal the schematics for the HoD. The UIR surrenders after witnessing the HoD (completed by Marcus Fenix's father, Professor Adam Fenix) devastate one of their naval vessels.

Six weeks after the COG and UIR agreed to an armistice, a race of subterranean creatures, known as the Locust Horde, emerge from Sera's depths and begin assaulting human cities. Wiping out 25% of the world population in the first 26 hours, this initial attack is referred to as "Emergence Day". The Locust overwhelm the already battle-worn COG forces during this surprise attack, causing them to retreat to the Jacinto Plateau, an area granite bedrock the Locust cannot dig through, and reluctantly bombard their own cities with the HoD to halt the Horde's advance. The ensuing scorched earth tactic destroys much of Sera's cities and human population. The COG continues to operate out of the COG capital in Ephyra, and other cities on the plateau, such as Jacinto. The surviving humans outside the plateau and COG jurisdiction, known as Stranded, are left to wander through Sera's charred ruins.

The Locust reemerge and begin a campaign of occupying human cities on the Jacinto Plateau to act as stepping stones. The Locust are eventually able to emerge and overrun Ephyra 10 years after Emergence Day. During the chaos, Marcus Fenix leads an unauthorized rescue mission to save his father from the Locust assault. During the evacuation, a helicopter is shot down by the Locust and crashes into the Fenix Estate, presumably killing Adam. The COG's leadership court martials Marcus and sentences him to 40 years in prison. After losing Ephyra, the remainder of the COG retreats to Jacinto City.

Gears of War is set 14 years after the Locust emerged, and four years into Marcus Fenix's imprisonment. The COG forces devise a last-ditch offensive to destroy the Locust by detonating the Lightmass Bomb in their tunnels. Marcus is reinstated into the COG army to supplement their depleted ranks and joins Dominic Santiago in Delta Squad on a mission to map the Locust tunnel network in preparation for the bombing. Their unit is ambushed by Locust forces and sustain heavy casualties. Fenix is repromoted to Sergeant and leads Delta with two other soldiers, Augustus Cole and Damon Baird. While the Sonic Resonator fails to map the tunnels, Delta uncovers mapping data already created by Adam Fenix. Marcus retrieves the tunnel data from his father's lab, who had been studying the Locust, and successfully deploys the Lightmass Bomb. Many of the Locust are killed. The Locust Queen, Myrrah, pledges to continue the war effort.

In the months following the Lightmass Offensive, the human population begins to suffer from a respiratory condition known as Rustlung, caused by the inhalation of Imulsion evaporated by the bombings. The Locust reemerge and bring with them a force that can sink entire cities on the Jacinto Plateau. After the destruction of Tollen and Montevado, the COG fears the Locust are trying to destroy Jacinto. Threatened with extinction, COG leader Chairman Richard Prescott devises Operation: Hollow Storm, in which thousands of soldiers will be deployed into the Hollow, locate the Locust stronghold, and eliminate them once and for all.

Gears of War 2 is set six months after the Lightmass Offensive. COG soldiers, including Delta, are deployed into the Hollow and battle the Locust to stop their plans of sinking Jacinto. The COG discovers the Locust have been using a gargantuan worm to sink the cities. After killing the Riftworm, Delta is ordered to locate the Locust stronghold by accessing intel from New Hope, a decommissioned COG research facility. The lab contains genetically altered humans called Sires, experiments on children ill with Rustlung that led to the creation of the Locust. Files there reveal the New Hope scientists fled to Mount Kadar to continue their work in solitude after the COG shut them down. The COG attacks Mount Kadar, where the Locust established their capital of Nexus. As the COG invades Nexus, they learn the Locust are mutating into the "Lambent", organisms infected with Imulsion. They have been forcing the Locust out of the Hollow for the surface world. Acting on advice from Adam Fenix, Queen Myrrah intends to sink Jacinto and use the surrounding seawater to flood the Hollow, drowning the Lambent and denying the humans their last safe city. The COG intentionally sinks Jacinto before the Locust can evacuate, drowning them in their tunnels and destroying their civilization. Adam Fenix is revealed to be alive through a radio transmission.

The remaining human population rediscover an island unscathed by the Locust War called Vectes. The Stranded gangs on the island threaten the safety of the COG, but the two groups ceasefire when the Lambent begin to emerge and overrun the island. Due to the Hollow being flooded, the Imulsion has begun to pollute the surface - causing a pandemic that aims to turn all life into Lambent organisms. Chairman Prescott is believed to be hiding secrets from the population about the origins of the Locust and Lambent, and loses their trust. Prescott abandons the COG, forcing them to disband and live as nomads, surviving against the Lambent and Locust stragglers on their own.

Gears of War 3 is set three years after Jacinto's sinking. Prescott returns to the COG and reveals to Marcus that Adam Fenix is alive. After the helicopter crash, Adam was rescued and brought to a secret island facility called Azura where he has been working the past seven years on the Imulsion countermeasure, a targeted radiation weapon which will neutralize both the Lambent and Locust. The island was sieged by Queen Myrrah's remaining forces. It is revealed that Adam knew of the Locust before E-Day and worked with Myrrah to solve the Lambent problem so the Locust wouldn't invade the surface, but was unable to provide a solution for them in time. Delta manages to locate Azura, liberate Adam, and release his countermeasure. Adam is killed by the radiation wave as he was exposed to Imulsion while developing the weapon. The countermeasure vaporizes all Lambent organisms, including Adam. The Locust are instead crystallized in an impenetrable shell. Marcus kills Queen Myrrah and humanity is able to start rebuilding.

Gears of War: RAAM's Shadow is set nine years after E-Day, shortly before the Locust invade Ephyra. High General RAAM leads a siege against Ilima City to use as a stepping stone in reaching Ephyra. Zeta Squad is ordered to locate and rescue civilians for evacuation before RAAM's forces occupy the city. The occupation of Ilima is successful and leads to the Locust taking Ephyra.

Software:Gears of War: Judgment focuses on Baird and Cole during the early months of the Locust War. With military cadet Sofia Hendrick and former UIR soldier Garron Paduk in Kilo Squad, they disobey orders and deploy the Lightmass Missile to the destroy Locust forces occupying Halvo Bay. The squad is court-martialed, but Kilo is acquitted due to their actions resulting in victory. A separate campaign, Aftermath, features Baird, Cole, and Paduk in the hours before the activation of the Imulsion countermeasure in Gears of War 3 as they prepare for reinforcements in the upcoming battle of Azura.

Following the end of the Locust War, the humans of Sera reform the COG, led by First Minister Anya Stroud, wife of Marcus Fenix. With the assistance of robotic DeeBees created by Baird, the COG builds New Ephyra and other walled cities known as Settlements. Anya gives birth to Marcus' son, James Dominic "JD" Fenix. Anya dies from complications during pregnancy, and the COG becomes more authoritarian under First Minister Mina Jinn - prompting many civilians to abandon the COG and live off the land, known as Outsiders. After joining the military, both JD and Delmont "Del" Walker are forced to execute civilians during a protest in Settlement 2, prompting them to leave the COG and becoming Outsiders. They join the village of Fort Umson, led by Reyna Diaz and her brother-in-law, Oscar. Reyna's daughter, Kait, becomes close with JD and Del.

Gears of War 4 takes place 25 years after human victory. Fort Umson is ambushed by creatures called the Swarm. Reyna and the other villagers are captured. With JD, Kait, and Del left - they recruit Marcus to save their people. The COG pursues the group after erroneously believing they are behind a string of kidnappings. The four reach a Locust burial site where they learn the Imulsion countermeasure caused the Locust to evolve into the Swarm and have been capturing humans to transform them into soldiers for their new army. The group receives assistance from Baird and Cole as they battle their way to the Swarm's hive, but discover Reyna has been forcefully integrated in their network. Kait separates and euthanizes her mother upon her request. Kait is given the necklace that belonged to Reyna's mother, which bears the symbol of the Locust Horde.

Kait, JD, Del, and Marcus rejoin the COG and offer their intelligence to Jinn in order to help fight the Swarm. After Reyna's death, Kait begins to have nightmares and visions related to the Swarm, caused by Queen Myrrah, whose consciousness is still alive and connected to Kait's mind. Kait refuses to tell the others about her connection to the Locust out of fear. Marcus and Baird believe the Hammer of Dawn will be needed back online to defend against the upcoming war with the Swarm. Baird uncovers intel on additional Hammer of Dawn satellites at Azura.

Gears 5 begins with Delta returning to Azura to launch the Hammer satellites as the Swarm starts to attack COG Settlements. Kait is captured by the Swarm and is connected to the hivemind, in which she controls the Swarm army, resulting in her Uncle Oscar's death. After being rescued, Kait reveals her visions and believes them to be messages from the Locust, as evidenced by her grandmother's necklace. Marcus has Kait find answers at the New Hope facility and a secret lab in Mount Kadar where the scientists fled. Kait learns the Locust were the result of genetic experiments on human children sick with Rustlung and mutated with the DNA of creatures from the Hollow. The Sires were used to fertilize the stem cells of Myrrah, who was genetically immune to Imulsion. Myrrah was Reyna's mother, making Kait the next in line for queen. Kait disconnects herself from the hivemind, forcing Myrrah to possess Reyna's reanimated body. The Swarm, becoming stronger with their queen, launches an attack against New Ephyra. Using the Hammer of Dawn, the COG repels the Swarm attack. Kait vows to kill Queen Reyna before she can attack again.

Software:Gears 5: Hivebusters follows Jeremiah Keegan, Lahni Kaliso, and Leslie Macallister shortly after the Battle of New Ephyra. Victor Hoffman, and Cole's daughter, Hana, have devised a potential solution for ending the Swarm by having soldiers infiltrate their hives and planting venom bombs to take down all the Swarm connected. They are successful in infiltrating and destroying the Swarm hive. Although it fails to kill all the Swarm, it's an advantage the COG has in the war against them.

Gears Tactics takes place a year after E-Day. Sgt. Gabriel Diaz, Kait's father and Oscar's brother, and Major Sid Redburn are tasked with assassinating Locust scientist, Ukkon, who is physically immortal by regenerating any damage done to him. Redburn reveals he was a guard at New Hope and was responsible for creating the Locust and Ukkon. Redburn is able to replicate the chemical New Hope used to counteract Ukkon's healing as a fail-safe. Diaz liberates a Locust prison camp and rescues Reyna, Kait's mother, from Ukkon's capture. Using the chemical, Reyna kills Ukkon. Diaz and Redburn abandon the COG after Prescott tries to kill them for learning about New Hope. Reyna joins them in their hunt of Ukkon's creations.

Software:Gears of War: E-Day takes place fourteen years before the first game on Emergence Day, the day on which the Locust Horde emerged on the surface of Sera to war against humanity, and follows Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago.

Gameplay

Marcus Fenix, the player-controlled character, takes aim at a Locust Drone with a Lancer from behind cover. The game uses an over-the-shoulder camera angle when displaying the targeting reticle.

Gears of War is a third-person shooter game, with its core concepts being derived from Resident Evil 4's "over the shoulder" perspective, Kill Switch's cover system, and Bionic Commando's swinging action akin to moving between points of cover. The series focuses on using cover to tactically engage the enemy in battle to avoid taking damage. While behind cover, the player can fire blindly and inaccurately at their opponent, or can look around the cover and aim carefully, though exposing to enemy fire; the player can slide along cover, move between nearby cover, or vault over cover to race to a new point of cover. As the player takes damage, the "Crimson Omen" appears on the HUD, becoming more defined as the player nears low health levels. The player can regenerate their health by staying out of harm's way for a short while. Should the player take too much damage, they will become incapacitated unless revived by a teammate; depending on game mode, the player may be able to recover from this state on their own, or may die after a short amount of time if not revived. When a combatant is down, a member of the other side may attempt to execute the downed player via a "curb stomp" or other brutal methods. Some types of damage will immediately kill the player with no chance of revival, such as explosive damage. There are five levels on the first two games; they are referred to as "acts" and each act is formed into a certain number of chapters.

Players in Gears of War can carry four different weapons, with the exception of the fourth game, allowing two primary weapon slots that can carry weapons which include, but are not limited to: assault rifles, shotguns, a sniper rifle, grenade launchers and an explosive bow; one grenade slot, which may be filled with up to four grenades of a specific type (Fragmentation, Smoke, Ink and Incendiary), and one pistol-type weapon. Players can either obtain ammo or swap out their current weapons with any weapon dropped by a downed foe or from those scattered around the various maps. Most weapons feature the "Active Reload" ability: either after a weapon has depleted an ammo magazine or when the player starts a manual reload, a meter is shown on screen, and the player can attempt to stop the meter in a certain marked area. If the player stops the meter in the marked area, their reload will be completed faster than if they did not attempt an Active Reload, and if the player can stop the meter at a specific section of the marked area, they will gain a temporary slight damage boost with each reloaded shot and a faster reload. If the player stops the meter outside this area, their gun will become temporarily jammed and slow down the reload time. While most of the weapons are based on standard shooter archetypes, Gears of War's signature weapon is the Lancer Assault Rifle, which has a mounted chainsaw bayonet that can be used in close quarter combat to instantly kill a standard foe. Another notable weapon is the Gnasher Shotgun, which is one of the most-used weapons in multiplayer modes for the series, as well as its most divisive. While it is inefficient at long distances, it is a popular weapon of choice at close-quarters as it is small and easy to aim, making it exceptionally useful for close-range combat. The Gnasher Shotgun, like many other weapons, can be used to bash opponents in melee, or in the case of grenades, can be stuck to a foe, exploding a few seconds later. In Gears of War 2 and Gears of War 3, all four types of grenades can be planted on any reachable surface, detonating when an opponent comes close to it. If the opponent spots the grenade, they can detonate it from a safe distance by shooting it.

All Gears of War games feature a campaign mode that can be played cooperatively with one other player. The two players take the roles of two COG soldiers, Marcus Fenix and Dominic "Dom" Santiago, as they fight the Locust. In the third game the campaign allows for up to four players to play together at the same time. The campaign mode features several levels of difficulty. At various times, the campaign will offer a choice of paths the first player can select; if the second player is present, they will be forced to take the other path. The third and fourth players in Gears of War 3 will be separated between the paths of the first and second players. In these areas, all players generally have to work together to get them through the section, such as by one player providing covering fire while the second player opens a switch that allows the first player to proceed.

The competitive multiplayer mode in Gears of War features 8 players while in Gears of War 2 features up to ten players split between COG and Locust forces in a number of gameplay types. Modes include "Warzone" and "Execution", both similar to a typical deathmatch, and "Annex" and "King of the Hill" where teams have to control a marked zone on the map. In the mode "Guardian" (only in Gears of War 2) one member of each team is designated as the leader. As long as the leader is still alive, their teammates can respawn indefinitely. As soon as the leader is executed, their teammates can no longer respawn.

Games

Main series

Gears of War

Gears of War is a third-person shooter video game developed by Epic Games and published by Microsoft Studios. It was initially released for the Xbox 360 on November 7, 2006, in North America, and on November 17 in Europe. It was released for Microsoft Windows on June 11, 2007. Gears of War follows Delta Squad's efforts to help deploy a Lightmass bomb deep in the Locust tunnels to wipe out the Locust threat.

A remastered edition of the game titled Software:Gears of War: Ultimate Edition was developed and released for the Xbox One and Microsoft Windows by The Coalition, after Microsoft acquired the rights to the Gears of War franchise from Epic Games in 2014. A second remaster, Gears of War: Reloaded, developed by The Coalition in collaboration with Sumo Digital and Disbelief is set for release on Xbox Series X/S, Microsoft Windows, and PlayStation 5 in 2025.

Gears of War 2

Gears of War 2 is a third-person shooter video game published by Microsoft Studios. It is the sequel to Gears of War and was released worldwide on November 7, 2008. The game uses a heavily upgraded version of the Unreal Engine 3. Gears of War 2 takes place 6 months after the first game, where the Locust are attempting to sink Jacinto Plateau, and the COG forces have decided to launch a counter-offensive to stop them before they can complete their attempt. Ultimately the COG sinks Jacinto themselves to flood the home of the Locust (the Hollow) and drown them.

A PC version of the game was originally planned before being cancelled by the developers, citing poor sales of the original PC version of Gears of War as well as concerns over piracy.

Gears of War 3

Gears of War 3 is the concluding part to the trilogy. Originally with an April 6, 2011, release date, it was moved to September 20 to anchor Microsoft Studios' holiday portfolio for the Xbox 360.

Gears of War 3 takes place 18 months after the end of Gears of War 2. Marcus, Dom, and the last remnants of humanity must band together to survive against the Locust and Lambent, while trying to find Marcus's father and end the war. In the end, a weapon developed by Marcus' father Adam Fenix is detonated, wiping out the Locust and the Lambent, as well as ending the war.

RAAM's Shadow

RAAM's Shadow is a secondary campaign for Gears of War 3 introduced as a DLC. Taking place several years before the original Gears of War game, RAAM's Shadow follows Zeta-Six during the Evacuation of Ilima, a city that appeared in ruins in Gears of War 2 as well as taking place from the perspective of Locust General RAAM. Zeta-Six is made up of Lieutenant Minh Young Kim from Gears of War, Tai Kaliso from Gears of War 2, Michael Barrick from the comic book series and Alicia Valera. Supporting character Jace Stratton previously appeared as a member of Delta Squad in Gears of War 3.

Gears of War 4

Gears of War 4 is an Xbox One and Windows 10 game developed by The Coalition and released on October 11, 2016.

The game's plot is set 25 years after Gears of War 3 and focuses on JD Fenix, the son of Marcus Fenix, who joins his father and two new characters: Delmont "Del" Walker and Kait Diaz against the "Swarm", a new threat risen from the remnants of the Locust.

Gears 5

Gears 5 is a sequel to Gears of War 4. It was released for Windows and Xbox One on September 10, 2019. The game focusing on Kait Diaz, as she looks for the means to counter the Swarm, learning about the true origin of the Locust and their connection with her family.

Hivebusters

Hivebusters is a single-player downloadable content expansion pack for Gears 5. Taking place before the events of the Gears of War: Hivebusters comic book series, Hivebusters follows Team Scorpio — Corporal Jeremiah Keegan, Lieutenant Lahni Kaliso and Outsider Leslie "Mac" Macallister — as they investigate a method to infiltrate and destroy the Swarm's hives from within as seen in the "Escape" multiplayer mode of Gears 5.

Gears of War: E-Day

Gears of War: E-Day is an upcoming prequel set 14 years before the events of Gears of War. The game was officially announced on June 9, 2024, during the Xbox Games Showcase by Microsoft Gaming at the Summer Game Fest.

Spin-offs

Gears of War: Judgment

Gears of War: Judgment is a spin-off/prequel, released on March 19, 2013. The characters include Baird, accompanied by Augustus "Cole Train" Cole and two new characters, Garron Paduk and Sofia Hendrik, who make up Kilo Squad. Kilo Squad is put on trial by another new character, Ezra Loomis.

Gears Pop!

Gears Pop! was a spin-off for mobile devices based on Funko's POP! toyline and released on August 22, 2019. However, the game was eventually discontinued on April 26, 2021.

Gears Tactics

Gears Tactics is a turn-based strategy spin-off for Xbox One and Windows, developed by Splash Damage and released on April 28, 2020. Set before the events of the first game, it follows a military unit led by Sgt. Gabriel Diaz, who would later become Kait's father.

Other games

Characters from the Gears of War series have made guest appearances in games outside of the Gears of War franchise. Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago are playable in the Xbox 360 version of Lost Planet 2. General RAAM was announced as a playable character in Killer Instinct: Season Three during Microsoft's E3 2016 press conference on June 13, 2016, and was released following the presentation's conclusion.

Backwards compatibility

Microsoft revealed on August 3, 2015, that the four Gears of War titles that launched on Xbox 360 — Gears of War, Gears of War 2, Gears of War 3, and Gears of War: Judgment — are compatible on Xbox One through the backwards compatibility program. In 2021, all aforementioned games got 60 FPS support on Xbox Series X and Series S as part of the Xbox FPS Boost program.

Music

The video game music for Gears of War was composed by Kevin Riepl, who had previously worked with Epic Games on soundtracks for Unreal Tournament 2003, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Unreal Championship 2. The music for Gears of War 2 and Gears of War 3 was composed by Steve Jablonsky. The music for Gears of War 4 is composed by Ramin Djawadi. Ramin Djawadi continued to compose the music for the next title in the series, Gears 5.

Adaptations

The Board Game

Gears of War: The Board Game was released in 2011 by Fantasy Flight Games. Designed by Corey Konieczka, it is a cooperative game for up to four players, including the option for solo play. Each player takes control of a COG (represented by a miniature figure pre-painted in red), fighting their way through randomly generated maps filled with Locust soldiers (represented by a miniature figure pre-painted in light gray). These are controlled by an AI deck of cards: after each player finishes their turn, they draw a card from the AI deck and takes actions for each Locust creature. Players play cards and roll dice to take actions as well as to resolve shooting and defense. The game proceeds until the player team successfully completes the mission. There are seven different missions, each featuring different objectives and enemies in randomly generated map layouts. Since its launch, the game has received one expansion, Mission Pack 1, which brought more weapons, two new missions and new enemies, including General RAAM.

Books

A series of novels based on the Gears of War series were written by Karen Traviss. The books expand on the games and detail events which occur in between installments. Gears of War: Aspho Fields was the first in an expected trilogy, although the total numbers of books has since grown to seven. Once the video game franchise was extended, author Jason M. Hough was promoted as the author for more tie-in novels set in the world.

• Gears of War: Aspho Fields (2008), by Karen Traviss, tells the story of Aspho Fields, a battle that changed the course of the Pendulum Wars, while bridging the gap between the first and second game in the present day. It also fills in some history of the relationship between Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago, as well as Dom's brother, Carlos.
• Gears of War: Jacinto's Remnant (2009), by Karen Traviss, continues where Gears of War 2 ends, as the survivors of Jacinto search for a new life while fending off attacks from the last of the Locust. With the Horde all but defeated, humanity may yet again become its own worst enemy. It also details the events one year after E-Day, when the new chairman authorized the use of the Hammer of Dawn.
• Gears of War: Anvil Gate (2010), by Karin Traviss, takes place between the second and the third game. With the Locust apparently defeated, humans have once more succumbed to infighting. But when the Lambent—the monsters that even the Horde feared—appear, the humans must remember the tactics of an old battle if they hope to survive this war.
• Gears of War: Coalition's End (2011), by Karin Traviss, finds humanity on the brink of extinction, pushed back to the remote island of Vectes. There both Gears and refugees have banded together to survive a threat even greater than the Locust—the Lambent. It takes place approximately eighteen months after the events of Gears of War 2 and leads directly into the events of Gears of War 3.
• Gears of War: The Slab (2012), by Karin Traviss, details the events of Marcus's imprisonment in the Slab, following his desertion in the middle of battle to attempt to save his father's life. The novel focuses on the backstories of Marcus and Adam Fenix, and also Victor Hoffman and takes place prior to the events of Gears of War.
• Gears of War: Ascendance (2019), by Jason M. Hough, bridges the gap between Gears of War 4 and Gears 5.
• Gears of War: Bloodlines (2020), by Jason M. Hough, takes place within the four month time skip in Gears 5. It also features a flashback storyline featuring Lieutenant Colonel Gabriel Diaz, Kait Diaz's father, during the Pendulum Wars. The book's ending also hints at the events of Gears Tactics with Gabriel's demotion to Sergeant and motor pool and a mention by Colonel Victor Hoffman of Ukkon, the primary antagonist of Gears Tactics.
• Gears of War: Ephyra Rising (2021), by Michael A. Stackpole, The Locust War has ended with an energy weapon that pulsed across the land, destroying Locust and Lambent alike. The world is in shambles and the few survivors are isolated from one another. Humanity must begin anew. This novel reveals the canonical, never-before-seen events set in the time immediately following the game Gears of War 3.

Comic-book series

"Gears of War: Hollow" was the first comic book series based on the Gears of War games, released in December 2008. The series was published under DC's Wildstorm imprint and was written by Joshua Ortega, with art by Liam Sharp. The story arc followed Jace Stratton, a young recruit of Delta Squad who made an appearance in Gears of War 3 and Michael Barrick, a solo Gear found by Delta. The arc was 6 issues long and ended in May 2009. Two stand-alone comic book series were released. Issue 7, "The Quickening", followed the life of Tai Kaliso from his home in the South Islands to the torture den of the Locust Horde. This was released on June 9, 2009.

The second stand-alone was "Harper's Story". In Gears of War 2 there are collectibles which describe the end of Sgt. Jonathan Harper, a Gears veteran. He was captured by the Locust during the events of the Hollow. He managed to survive the vile deeds of the Locust Horde and escape. He helped a family reach safety, taking the bullets into his own body before falling to the ground.

Issue number 9 begins a new arc, "Barren", of which the first part was released in September 2009. The "other side" of the life of humans faced by total annihilation are shown. Birthing creches, or breeding farms, filled with women who are there to just to give birth. With humanity dying out and no people to replace fallen Gears, new humans are needed. The story focuses on an escapee from one of these centers named Alex Brand. Declared to be barren at the age of 18, Brand was kicked from the breeding farm she was born in, sent to Boot Camp and trained to be a Gear. She accompanies Delta and Sigma Squads as they investigate a mysterious beacon call from the place at which she was born, which was thought to have been destroyed by Locust.

Gears of War: The Rise of RAAM

Gears of War: The Rise of RAAM is a comic book series acting as a prequel to the Gears of War series and taking place from the point of view of iconic Gears of War villain General RAAM. The supporting characters included Locust Queen Myrrah, Skorge from Gears of War 2 and Karn from Software:Gears of War: Judgment while the comics introduced Locust High General Sraak, High Priest Vrol and the Locust scientist Ukkon who would subsequently appear as the main antagonist of Gears Tactics.

Taking place years before Emergence Day, the Locust are in a losing war with Lambent in their home which was the Hollow. RAAM who was a Lieutenant in the Locust army urges the Horde's leadership to invade the surface, exterminate humanity and claim the surface world for themselves. Despite RAAM having Skorge's backing, High General Sraak refuses to hear them out even with evidence that the war with the Lambent is lost. Sraak subsequently attempts to assassinate RAAM with the help of Ukkon using a Corpser, but he fails. As he was unaware that the Locust council is listening in, RAAM decides to include High Priest Vrol and Karn in his plot to convince Queen Myrrah to invade the surface. RAAM manages to get Karn to help by playing on his doubts and they purposefully allowed the Lambent to reach the Inner Hollow where they attacked the Locust temple. RAAM swoops in within time to save the temple, convincing Vrol to help him.

With the backing of Skorge, Vrol and Karn, RAAM presents his case to the council, shocking Myrrah that his reports are so different from Sraak's. RAAM presents his plan to win the war by invading the surface, taking it over and flooding the Hollow with seawater in order to wipe the Lambent out once they are gone. Myrrah agrees and she promotes RAAM to her new High General while demoting the humiliated Sraak to RAAM's old rank of Lieutenant. Myrrah privately revealed her alliance with Adam Fenix to find a solution to the Lambent and how Adam failed to deliver forcing her to invade the surface. Myrrah has also been aware about RAAM's coup from the beginning and while she agreed with his plan, she was waiting for RAAM to act. She also threatens RAAM's life should he ever attempt to dethrone her. RAAM promotes Karn and he instructs him to lead the destruction of the country of Gorasnaya. Ukkon also agrees to help RAAM in exchange for human prisoners to use as his test subjects.

On Emergence Day, RAAM personally leads the attack on the human city of Jannermount. Skorge warns RAAM that according to his visions, RAAM will not survive the war. However, RAAM is unbothered by the news as he intends Skorge to take over if he should fall. A crazed Sraak attacks the two, intending to kill RAAM and Skorge and regain his power. However, RAAM anticipated Sraak's actions and he has two Theron Guards shoot Sraak, destroying the chest piece of his formidable armor. RAAM executes Sraak by ripping his heart out and he continues leading humanity's extermination.

Gears of War: Hivebusters

Gears of War: Hivebusters is a comic book series that came out in 2019. The comic focuses on Team Scorpio—Corporal Jeremiah Keegan, Lieutenant Lahni Kaliso and Outsider Leslie "Mac" Macallister—as they work with Colonel Victor Hoffman, Doctor Hana Cole and King Raven pilot Tak to destroy Swarm Hives across Sera. The Gears 5 DLC Hivebusters released in December 2020 acts as a direct prequel to the comic book series.

Having been captured and taken into the heart of the Swarm Hive on the South Island of Pahanu, Scorpio is awakened in their pods by the adrenaline injectors that Hana created for them, although Mac becomes trapped in a nightmare of the loss of his family that the rest of Scorpio experiences through the Swarm Hivemind. Scorpio is able to plant their new Venom Bombs, but accidentally awaken the Hive in the process and have to fight off thousands of overwhelming Swarm forces as the deadly gas spreads. Tak is able to extract Scorpio as the Pahanu Hive is destroyed and Hana expresses a belief that destroying a Swarm Hive will kill all of the Swarm connected to it, taking out the remaining Swarm on the surface that they did not get. Hoffman rewards Lahni with a pardon for the crime that had sent her to prison and an official reinstatement into the COG and sets up a meeting for Keegan with his old commanding officer who survived the Locust War. Hoffman offers Mac a new mission now that they know that the Hivebuster plan works: destroy the Swarm Hive in the Outsider village of Bravelle, Mac's former home. Although Hoffman offers to find replacements, both Lahni and Keegan volunteer for the mission.

Scorpio is flown to the village of Croya due to Bravelle's inaccessibility by air where they witness the aftermath of the Swarm's decimation of the town. Mac finds and repairs his old delivery truck for transport while reliving his past as an award-winning delivery driver for both Croya and Bravelle before the Swarm attacked and killed everyone, including his young son Dillon. The Swarm attacks Scorpio, but they manage to escape in the delivery truck. However, an attack by a Swarm Flock wrecks the truck and forces Scorpio to continue the journey on foot, encountering the remains of the convoy where Mac's ex-wife and father lost their lives during a Swarm ambush that Mac barely escaped alive from.

Reaching Bravelle, Mac leads Scorpio to the old COG bunker containing the Hive where Scorpio allows themselves to be captured by Snatchers. In his pod, Mac experiences a dream of telling a bedtime story to Dillon before awakening. Scorpio is able to plant their Venom Bombs and fight their way out, but encounter and fight a Warden on the surface and all suffer injuries. Mac eventually manages to kill the Warden by ramming it with a truck and then stabbing it through the eye and Scorpio escapes the bunker as the Hive is destroyed.

Recovering Mac's old car, Scorpio drives back to Croya, but discovers that destroying a Swarm Hive does not kill all of the Swarm connected to it when they spot Swarm survivors off in the distance. Scorpio is attacked by the Flock again, but manage to kill it and are extracted by Tak. Mac decides to dedicate himself to continuing the mission of destroying Swarm Hives as it allows him to see Dillon again while he is podded and Lahni and Keegan agree to join him.

Film

In March 2007, New Line Cinema had purchased the rights to make a Gears of War film, with Stuart Beattie writing the script along with Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey, who would be producing it. Producer Wyck Godfrey said of the film adaptation: "I'm not a gamer, but what blew me away about Gears was how it captures the mythology of a war mission and how high the stakes are." Len Wiseman was reported to direct the movie adaptation of Gears of War in August, but Godfrey stated that they have "a director we're about to attach" in order to film the movie during 2009 and release in 2010. Cliff Bleszinski, the lead designer of the Gears of War video games, would serve as executive producer and consultant.

Wiseman signed on in June 2008, with Chris Morgan performing script rewrites. Morgan hinted on G4's televised coverage of Comic Con 2008 that the film would be a prequel to the first game, "it could explain how Marcus Fenix got his scar". According to Morgan, Wiseman "wants to make it as realistic as possible, and to blur those lines where your mind says, 'Oh, it's a big CGI film.'". Wyck Godfrey said in December 2009 that the intention of the Gears of War film was "to tell the epic story of an alien planet that's living in a horrific environment just feels like the wrong mood right now". In April 2010, New Line considerably scaled back the $100 million budget and story, stalling progress while they waited for a rewrite. Len Wiseman was no longer involved as he shifted his focus to other projects.

In April 2013, Variety reported that "Creative Artists Agency is eager to meet with producers in the coming weeks and set up the project elsewhere" and that Stuart Beattie would write the film. Scott Stuber is named to produce the film.

At the launch ceremony for Gears of War 4 in October 2016, The Coalition's Rod Fergusson affirmed that a Gears of War movie entered development for a theatrical release at Universal Pictures. Scott Stuber and Dylan Clark would produce the film under Universal's Bluegrass Films division, but no director or writer has been selected at this point. Fergusson also stated that where the film takes place relative to the games has been determined. Universal hired Shane Salerno to write the screenplay with Fergusson in May 2017, saying that "the movie won't be based on one of the games but a new story set in the universe." F. Scott Frazier was reported to write the film's script the following year. The film adaptation will not be set in the same universe as the video games. In November 2022, the film entered development for streaming on Netflix, who will collaborate with The Coalition on the film. In March 2023, Jon Spaihts was reported to be writing the film. On May 15, 2025, The Hollywood Reporter announced that David Leitch will direct and co-produce the movie.

Animated series

On November 7, 2022, an adult animated series based on the franchise was announced to be in the works at Netflix following the announcement of the film.

Merchandise

In July 2007, NECA announced they would be producing Gears of War merchandise, including action figures. The first series, available in the second quarter of 2008, included Augustus Cole, Anthony Carmine, Baird, a Locust Drone, a Locust Sniper, Dom Santiago and Marcus Fenix. TriForce Sales has obtained a license from Epic Games to create full-scale replicas of the armor and weapons from the game, with assistance of sculptor Sid Garrand of Nightmare Armor Studios. The units were available for advanced order in July 2008. Mindzeye Studios has created foot high statues of Gears of War characters.

Reception

All of the Gears of War titles have been received positively, and the original trilogy is critically acclaimed. IGN rated Gears of War 3 the 22nd best Xbox 360 game, out of a list of 25. In 2010, Lasse Pulkkinen from Techno Buffalo called Gears of War 2 the best looking game on the Xbox 360. In 2011, readers of Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition voted Augustus Cole as the 46th-top video game character of all time.

Sales

According to Microsoft, the Gears of War series has sold over 22 million units and earned over US$1 billion in revenue as of January 2014.

Legal issues

In January 2017, former American football player Lenwood Hamilton sued Epic Games, Microsoft, and voice actor Lester Speight, stating that the character of Cole Train in the series steals from his own likeness and voice. The lawsuit contends that elements of Cole's character, including being of African-American descent, having played in professional sports, and elements of the character's clothing were all elements representative of Hamilton, and voice analysis shows that Speight's delivery of Cole's lines matches too close with Hamilton's line. Hamilton had stated that Speight had approached him around 1998 about a video game, though Hamilton had turned it down due to the violence that would be in the game. Lenwood was ultimately unsuccessful in his bid: "The district court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment on First Amendment grounds, holding that defendants' First Amendment right to free expression in creating the Cole character that allegedly resembled plaintiff outweighed plaintiff's right of publicity". The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld the district court's decision, though Hamilton has petitioned to the U.S. Supreme Court for review. The Supreme Court denied to review the case in June 2021, leaving in place the summary judgment for Epic and Microsoft.

Legacy

Former Naughty Dog developer Lucas Pope has stated that the Uncharted franchise drew inspiration from Gears of War, with the first game in the series being delayed after the first Gears of War game released in order for certain core gameplay and technical elements to more resemble that of the latter.

External links

Short description: American video game company

Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, Maryland. Following its first commercial video game release, ZZT (1991), the company became Epic MegaGames, Inc. in early 1992 and brought on Mark Rein, who has been its vice president since. After moving the headquarters to Cary in 1999, the studio changed its name to Epic Games.

Epic Games developed Unreal Engine, a commercially available game engine which also powers its internally developed video games like Fortnite and the Unreal, Gears of War, and Infinity Blade series. In 2014, Unreal Engine was named the "most successful videogame engine" by Guinness World Records.

Epic Games owns the game developers Psyonix, Mediatonic, and Harmonix, and operates studios in multiple locations around the world. While Sweeney remains the controlling shareholder, Tencent acquired a 48.4% outstanding stake, equating to 40% of total Epic, in the company in 2012, as part of an agreement aimed at moving Epic towards a games as a service model. Following the release of the popular Fortnite Battle Royale in 2017, the company gained additional investments that enabled it to expand its Unreal Engine offerings, establish esports events around Fortnite, and launch the Epic Games Store. As of April 2022, the company has a US$32 billion equity valuation.

On August 13, 2020, Epic released a version of Fortnite that included a permanent discount on V-bucks across all platforms (except iOS and Android devices) if they purchased directly through Epic, bypassing Apple and Google's storefronts. Both Apple and Google immediately delisted the game for violating the storefronts' terms of service by including their own storefront, which led Epic to file lawsuits against both companies the same day, accusing them of antitrust behavior in how they operate their app stores. While Apple was ultimately victorious in a bench trial in September 2021 and upheld through appeals, Google's actions were found to be monopolistic by a jury trial in December 2023.

History

Potomac Computer Systems (1991–1992)

Potomac Computer Systems was founded by Tim Sweeney in 1991. At the time, Sweeney was studying mechanical engineering and living in a dorm at the University of Maryland. He frequently visited his parents, who lived in nearby Potomac, Maryland, where his personal computer, used for both work and leisure, was situated. Out of this location, Sweeney started Potomac Computer Systems as a computer consulting business but later figured that it would be too much work he would have to put into keeping the business stable, and scrapped the idea.

After finishing his game ZZT, Sweeney opted to re-use the Potomac Computer Systems name to release the game to the public in January 1991. It was only with the unexpected success of ZZT, caused in most part by the easy modifiability of the game using Sweeney's custom ZZT-oop programming language, that made Sweeney consider turning Potomac Computer Systems into a video game company. ZZT was sold through bulletin board systems, while all orders were fulfilled by Sweeney's father, Paul Sweeney. The game sold several thousand copies as of May 2009, and Paul Sweeney still lived at the former Potomac Computer Systems address at the time, fulfilling all orders that eventually came by mail. The final copy of ZZT was shipped by Paul Sweeney in November 2013.

Epic MegaGames (1992–1999)

Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney

In early 1992, Sweeney found himself and his new-found video game company in a business where larger studios, such as Apogee Software and id Software, were dominant, and he had to find a more serious name for his. As such, Sweeney came up with "Epic MegaGames", a name which incorporated "Epic" and "Mega" to make it sound like it represented a fairly large company (such as Apogee Software), although he was its only employee. Sweeney soon underwent searching for a business partner, and eventually caught up with Mark Rein, who previously quit his job at id Software and moved to Toronto, Ontario. Rein worked remotely from Toronto, and primarily handled sales, marketing and publishing deals; business development that Sweeney found to have significantly contributed to the company's growth. Some time this season, the company soon had 20 employees consisting of programmers, artists, designers and composers. Among them was the 17-year old Cliff Bleszinski, who joined the company after submitting his game Dare to Dream to Sweeney. The following year, they had over 30 employees.

In 1996, Epic MegaGames produced a shareware isometric shooter called Fire Fight, developed by Polish studio Chaos Works. It was published by Electronic Arts. By 1997, Epic MegaGames had 50 people working for them worldwide. In 1998, Epic MegaGames released Unreal, a 3D first-person shooter co-developed with Digital Extremes, which expanded into a series of Unreal games. The company also began to license the core technology, the Unreal Engine, to other game developers.

Epic Games (1999–present)

Unreal and personal computer games (1999–2006)

In February 1999, Epic MegaGames announced that they had moved their headquarters to a new location in Cary, North Carolina, and would henceforth be known as simply Epic Games. Rein explained that "Unreal was first created by developers who were scattered across the world, eventually, the team came together to finish the game and that's when the real magic started. The move to North Carolina centralizes Epic, bringing all of the company's talented developers under one roof." Furthermore, Sweeney stated that the "Mega" part of the name was dropped because they no longer wanted to pretend to be a big company, as was the original intention of the name when it was a one-man team. The follow-up game, Unreal Tournament, shipped to critical acclaim the same year, at which point the studio had 13 employees.

The company launched the Make Something Unreal competition in 2004, aiming to reward video game developers who create mods using the Unreal game engine. Tripwire Interactive won US$80,000 in cash and computer hardware prizes over the course of the contest in the first contest in 2004.

Gears of War and console games (2006–2012)

Around 2006, the personal computer video game market was struggling with copyright infringement in the form of software piracy, and it became difficult to make single-player games, elements that had been part of Epic's business model to that point. The company decided to shift focus into developing console systems, a move which Sweeney called the start of the third major iteration of the company, "Epic 3.0". In 2006, Epic released the Xbox 360 shooter Gears of War, which became a commercial success for the company, grossing about $100 million off a $12 million budget. A year later, the company released Unreal Tournament 3 for PC and acquired a majority share in People Can Fly.

In 2008, Epic Games released Gears of War 2, selling over three million copies within the first month of its release.

Epic Games released on September 1, 2010 Epic Citadel as a tech demo to demonstrate the Unreal Engine 3 running on Apple iOS, within Adobe Flash Player Stage3D and using HTML5 WebGL technologies. It was also released for Android on January 29, 2013. Epic Games worked on an iOS game, Infinity Blade, which was released on December 9, 2010. The third game in the series, Gears of War 3, came out in 2011.

In 2011, Epic's subsidiary Titan Studios was dissolved. At the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, Epic Games announced their new game Fortnite.

In June 2012, Epic announced that it was opening up a new studio, Epic Baltimore, made up of members of 38 Studios' Big Huge Games. Epic Baltimore was renamed to Impossible Studios in August 2012. However, the studio ended up closing its doors in February 2013.

Epic fully acquired People Can Fly in August 2012, rebranding them as Epic Games Poland in November 2013 as they began work on Fortnite alongside Epic. Epic alongside People Can Fly made one last game in the Gears of War series that served as a prequel to the other games, Gears of War: Judgement, which was released in 2013. At this point, Epic had considered developing a fourth main title for Gears of War, but estimated that its budget would be at least $100 million. Additionally, they had suggested the idea of a multiplayer-only version of Gears of War that featured improved versions of maps based on user feedback, similar to the concept behind Unreal Tournament, but Microsoft rejected this idea. Epic recognized the troubles of being held to the business objectives of a publisher and began to shift the company again.

Games as a service and Tencent shareholding (2012–2018)

File:GitHub OctoTales - Epic Games.webm Coupled with their desire to move away from being beholden to a publisher, Epic Games observed that the video game industry was shifting to a games-as-a-service model (GaaS). Sweeney stated, "There was an increasing realization that the old model wasn't working anymore and that the new model was looking increasingly like the way to go." In an attempt to gain more GaaS experience, they made an agreement with Chinese Tencent, who had several games under their banner (including Riot Games' League of Legends) operating successfully as games as a service. In exchange for Tencent's help, Tencent acquired approximately 48.4% of Epic then issued share capital, equating to 40% of total Epic – inclusive of both stock and employee stock options, for $330 million in June 2012. Tencent Holdings has the right to nominate directors to the board of Epic Games and thus counts as an associate of the Group. However, Sweeney stated that Tencent otherwise has very little control on the creative output of Epic Games. Sweeney considered the partial acquisition by Tencent as the start of "Epic 4.0", the fourth major iteration of the company, allowing the company to be more agile in the video game marketplace.

Around this point, Epic had about 200 employees. A number of high-profile staff left the company months after the Tencent deal was announced for various reasons. Some notable departures included:

• Cliff Bleszinski, then the design director, announced he was leaving Epic Games in October 2012 after 20 years with the company. His official reason was "It's time for a much-needed break". Bleszinski later stated that he had become "jaded" about the gaming industry in the lead-up to Tencent's involvement. After Tencent's investment, Bleszinski attempted to renegotiate his contract but failed to come to terms, making him think about retirement instead. He opted to stop coming to work, spending his time at his beach house, eventually leading Sweeney to come down and have a heart-to-heart discussion with Bleszinski on the new direction Epic was going, and asking him to make a firm decision regarding his commitment to Epic. Bleszinski opted to write his resignation letter the next day. After about two years, Bleszinski started Boss Key Productions in 2014.
• President Mike Capps announced his retirement in December 2012, and cited as reasons the birth of a baby boy he was having with his wife and his plans to be a stay-at-home dad. He subsequently announced quitting his advisory role as well as his affiliation with the company in March 2013.
• Rod Fergusson, who had been a lead developer for the Gears of War series, left Epic in August 2012. Fergusson stated that he had seen the direction that the Tencent acquisition would have taken the company, and was not interested in the free-to-play style of games but instead wanted to continue developing a "AAA, big-narrative, big-story, big-impact game". Fergusson briefly joined Irrational Games, owned by 2K Games, to help complete BioShock Infinite. While there, Fergusson talked with 2K about potentially continuing the Gears of War series, leading to talks between 2K Games, Epic, and Microsoft. As a result, Microsoft acquired the rights to Gears of War on January 27, 2014, eventually assigned those to Microsoft Game Studios; Fergusson moved to Black Tusk Studios, owned by Microsoft Game Studios, to take on lead development for a new Gears title, with the studio being rebranded as The Coalition. The first game since the acquisition, Gears of War 4, was released in October 2016.
• Adrian Chmielarz, the founder of People Can Fly, who joined Epic when his studio was acquired earlier in 2012, decided to leave after Tencent's acquisition, stating that he and other former People Can Fly members did not believe the free-to-play games as a service direction fit their own personal vision or direction they wanted to go. Chmielarz and these others left Epic in late 2012 to form The Astronauts.
• Lee Perry, a lead designer on both Unreal and Gears of War series, felt that Epic has started to grow too large to maintain a role as an eccentric game developer. Coupled with the studio's need for more management to support the games as a service model, Perry felt that their creative freedom would become limited. He and five other senior people left Epic to form a new studio, Bitmonster.

Epic continued its goal to deliver games as a service following these departures. Fortnite was to serve as their testbed for living games, but with the shifts in staff, and its engine from Unreal Engine 3 to 4, its release suffered some setbacks. Epic started additional projects; the free-to-play and community-developed Unreal Tournament, first announced in 2014, and the free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena game Paragon, launched in 2016 for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4. Epic also released a remastered version of Shadow Complex for newer consoles and computers in 2015, and their first foray into virtual reality with the release of Robo Recall for the Oculus Rift.

The investment infusion from Tencent allowed Epic Games to relicense the Unreal Engine 4 engine in March 2015 to be free for all users to develop with, with Epic taking 5% royalties on games developed with the engine.

In June 2015, Epic agreed to allow Epic Games Poland's departure from the company and sold its shares in the studio; the studio reverted to their former name, People Can Fly. The Bulletstorm IP was retained by People Can Fly who has since launched a remastered version called Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition on April 7, 2017, published by Gearbox Software.

Fortnite success (2018–present)

Epic's Fortnite exhibition space at E3 2018

By July 2017, Fortnite was finally in a state for public play. Epic launched the title through a paid early access then, with a full free-to-play release expected in 2018. Following on the popularity of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, a battle royale game released earlier in 2017, Epic developed a variant of Fortnite called Fortnite Battle Royale, which was released in September 2017 as a free-to-play title across computer, console, and mobile platforms. Fortnite Battle Royale quickly gained an audience, amassing over 125 million players by May 2018 with estimates of having earned over $1 billion by July 2018 through microtransactions, including its battle pass system. Epic Games, which had been valued at around $825 million at the time of Tencent's acquisition, was estimated to be worth $4.5 billion in July 2018 due to Fortnite Battle Royale, and expected to surpass $8.5 billion by the end of 2018 with projected growth of the game. Player count continued to expand when Epic broke new ground by convincing Sony to change its stance on cross-platform play allowing players on any device to compete with each other in Fortnite Battle Royale. Fortnite has drawn nearly 250 million players as of March 2019.

Fortnite's commercial success enabled Epic to make several changes to its other product offerings. In July 2018, it reduced the revenue cut that it took for assets sold on the Unreal Engine Marketplace from 30% to 12%. Epic launched the Epic Games Store digital storefront to compete with services like Steam and GOG.com, not only taking a 12% cut of revenue compared to the industry standard of 30%, but also eliminated the 5% cut for games using the Unreal engine sold via the storefront. However the company also refocused its development efforts to provide more support for Unreal and Fortnite by ending support for Paragon and Unreal Tournament.

The financial success of Fortnite brought additional investment into Epic Games. Epic Games was one of eleven companies selected to be part of the Disney Accelerator program in 2017, providing Epic equity investment and access to some of Disney's executives, and potential opportunity to work with Disney in the future. Disney had selected both Epic and aXiomatic as potential leads in the growing esports arena.

Epic's has used its windfall to support its products. In January 2019, following a dispute between Improbable and Unity Technologies over changes to the acceptable uses of the Unity game engine, Epic announced it was partnering with Improbable to launch a $25 million fund to help bring developers they believe affected by these changes towards solutions that are more open and would have fewer service compatibilities. Epic launched a $100 million prize pool in February 2019 for Fortnite-related esports activities that it plans to run from 2019 onward. To expand its esports initiatives, Epic Games hired Nate Nanzer from Blizzard Entertainment and their commissioner of the Overwatch League in May 2019. At the 2019 Game Developers Conference, Epic announced it was launching a $100 million MegaGrants initiative, allowing anyone to apply for up to $500,000 in funding to support game development using the Unreal Engine or for any project, even if not directly games-related, that would benefit the Unreal Engine. One of the first major funded entities under this was the Blender Foundation in July 2019, having received $1.2 million from the MegaGrants funding, to help them to improve and professionalize their Blender tools for 3D art creation.

Epic Games was given the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Special Award in June 2019 for its past and continuing developments for the Unreal Engine, a software which also earned it the Engineering Excellence Award from the Hollywood Professional Association.

Epic announced in March 2020 it was establishing a new multi-platform publishing label, Epic Games Publishing. Alongside this, the label had announced three deals with developers Remedy Entertainment, Playdead and GenDesign in which Epic would fully fund development and publishing (including employee salaries, quality assurance, localization, and marketing) of one or more games from each studio, but leaving full creative control and IP rights to the studio, and sharing profits, following Epic's recouping of its investment, 50/50 with the studio. The company expanded their publishing options in October 2021 with Spry Fox and Eyes Out.

Unreal Engine 5 was announced on May 13, 2020, with plans for an early 2022 release. Alongside this announcement, Epic released its Epic Online Services, a free SDK toolset for online matchmaking and other similar cross-platform play support features based on Fortnite. Epic further waived all Unreal license fees retroactively for games up through the first $1 million in revenue, regardless of how they were published, retroactively starting from January 1, 2020.

Bloomberg reported that Epic was nearing a $17 billion valuation in June 2020 once it had completed a new $750 million investing round from its previous investors and newcomings T. Rowe Price Group Inc. and Baillie Gifford. The company partnered with Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. to acquire distribution rights for Inception, Batman Begins and The Prestige as part of "Movie Nite" on Fortnite's "Party Royale" island. The film live streams were based on a user's country.

Across July and August, Epic raised an additional $1.78 billion in capital investment, bringing the company's post-money equity valuation to $17.3 billion. This included a $250 million investment from Sony, approximately a 1.4% stake in the company. The deal continues the two companies' technology collaboration after they had worked together on the development of Unreal Engine 5, but does not commit Epic to any exclusivity to the Sony PlayStation platform. Sweeney said that Sony had started talking with Epic about investing following the demonstration of the Unreal Engine 5 in May 2020.

Epic purchased Cary Towne Center in Cary, North Carolina, in January 2021, which had been scheduled to be closed and demolished after 2020, to be their new headquarters and campus, with the conversion to be complete by 2024.

Epic unveiled its MetaHuman Creator project in February 2021. Based on the technology from 3Lateral, Cubic Motion, and Quixel, the MetaHuman Creator is a browser-based application to allow game developers to create realistic human characters within a short amount of time starting from various presets, and then can be exported as pre-made models and animation files ready for use in Unreal Engine.

Epic announced a partnership with Cesium in March 2021 to bring its 3D geospatial data as a free add-on into the Unreal Engine.

In April 2021, Epic completed another $1 billion round of funding to support the company's "long-term vision for the metaverse", putting the company's valuation at $28.7 billion. The round of funding included another $200 million strategic investment from Sony. Sweeney remains the controlling shareholder with these additional investments.

The Information reported that Epic Games was launching a new scripted entertainment division in October 2021, bringing on three former executives from Lucasfilm to manage it, with initial plans for a Fortnite film.

In February 2022 Epic Games announced that at least half a billion accounts have been created on its platform.

Epic released the initial beta version of RealityScan, a mobile app that uses the tools from Capturing Reality and Quixel, in April 2022. RealityScan allows users to create 3D models that can be imported into Sketchfab using photos taken by the user.

Epic received another $1 billion each from Sony and from Kirkbi, the parent company of The Lego Group, in April 2022 for continued support of building out Epic's metaverse. These investments gave Kirkbi 3% ownership and increased Sony's to 4.9%. With these investments, Epic had an estimated valuation of $32 billion. Epic and Lego also announced their partnership to build a child-friendly space in the metaverse that same month.

The company announced in September 2023 that it was laying off 870 employees, along with divesting in Bandcamp to Songtradr and spinning off SuperAwesome into its own company. Sweeney said this move was needed to rein in spending, and did not anticipate there would be further layoffs in the future. Mediatonic reported a significant number of layoffs from their team, but remained part of Epic.

Acquisitions

In 2008, Epic acquired Utah based Chair Entertainment, developer of Undertow. Summer 2009 saw the launch of Chair's Shadow Complex, an adventure game inspired by the Metroid series.

Epic announced in October 2018 that it had acquired $1.25 billion in investment from seven firms: KKR, ICONIQ Capital, Smash Ventures, aXiomatic, Vulcan Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The firms join Tencent, Disney, and Endeavor as minority shareholders in Epic. With the investment, Epic Games was estimated to have a nearly $15 billion valuation in October 2018.

Besides expanding support for Fortnite and the Epic Games Store, these investments allowed Epic to acquire additional firms. In January 2018, it was announced that Epic had acquired Cloudgine, a developer of cloud-based gaming software. The company also announced the acquisition of Kamu, a firm that offered anti-cheat software called Easy Anti-Cheat, in October 2018. A year later, in January 2019, Epic acquired 3Lateral and Agog Labs. 3Lateral is known for its "digital human" creations, using a combination of digital technology, motion capture, and other tools to create photo-realistic human subjects in real-time. Epic plans to add some of 3Lateral's features to the Unreal Engine. Agog had developed SkookumScript, a platform for scripting events in video games; on the announcement of this acquisition, Agog stated they will stop the development of SkookumScript to work more on Unreal Engine scripting support.

Epic acquired Psyonix, the developer of Rocket League, in May 2019. Epic and Psyonix have had a past history, as Psyonix was originally founded a few miles from Epic's headquarters and had contributed to Epic's Unreal Tournament. Besides ongoing support for Rocket League, Psyonix developed an arcade-style car racing game inside of Fortnite, named Rocket Racing, which was added in December 2023.

Epic acquired the Twinmotion visualization tool used in architectural design in May 2019 from Abvent, and which they plan to expand and incorporate into their Unreal Engine offerings. Epic acquired Life on Air, the developers behind Houseparty, a social networking service, in June 2019. The monetary terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Epic later shuttered Houseparty's app in October 2021, though the team behind it was continuing to develop social apps for Epic's platforms.

In November 2019, Epic acquired Quixel, the world's largest photogrammetry asset library which makes 3D models of objects based on real-world high-definition photography. Epic plans to open Quixel's existing library of models to users of Unreal Engine, while the Quixel staff will continue to build out its assets within Epic. The company acquired Cubic Motion, a studio that provides highly detailed digital facial animations for both films and video games, in March 2020.

Epic acquired SuperAwesome, a firm that has developed services to support children-safe games and services around games, in September 2020, as to incorporate these elements more into Epic's portfolio and to offer to other developers, particularly for games built around Epic's vision of metaverse games.

Epic acquired the digital facial animation firm Hyprsense in November 2020.

In January 2021, Epic acquired RAD Game Tools, a company that makes a variety of middleware solutions for video game development which Epic plans to incorporate into the Unreal Engine. RAD's tools will still remain available outside of Unreal as well.

In March 2021, Epic announced it was acquiring the Tonic Games Group, which includes developers Mediatonic and Fortitude Games. Mediatonic's Fall Guys, a major success during 2020, would remain available on Steam while Epic would help to bring it to additional platforms. Epic buying Tonic Games Group falls under the company's broader plans of creating its own metaverse. Additionally in March, Epic acquired Capturing Reality, the developers of RealityCapture, a photogrammetry suite that can create 3D models from numerous photographs. Epic plans to integrate RealityCapture into the Unreal Engine.

Epic Games acquired ArtStation, a professional artists' marketplace, in April 2021. As part of the acquisition, ArtStation members would gain access to Epic's tools and support such as the Unreal Engine, while the ArtStation marketplace will reduce its take on purchases from 30% to 12%. In July 2021, Epic acquired Sketchfab, a marketplace for 3D models. As with ArtStation, the acquisition allowed Sketchfab to reduce its pricing structure, lowering its revenue cut on purchases to 12% and making their Sketchfab Plus level of membership free.

In November 2021, Epic Games acquired Harmonix, a music game developer, for undisclosed terms. Harmonix continued to support their existing games including Rock Band 4 and Fuser while building out Fortnite's musical experiences, adding a Fortnite Festival mode that mimics the note-matching gameplay of Rock Band in December 2023, and Epic's larger metaverse plans,

Epic acquired the indie music platform Bandcamp in March 2022. Bandcamp was expected to remain independently operated under Epic while gaining the benefits of Epic's backend services. In April 2023, Epic acquired Brazilian studio Aquiris and changed its name to Epic Games Brasil, with the intention to be used in Fortnite. In September 2023, Epic sold Bandcamp to music licensing company Songtradr.

Products

Video games

Epic Games is known for games such as ZZT developed by founder Tim Sweeney, various shareware titles including Jazz Jackrabbit and Epic Pinball, the Unreal video game series, which is used as a showcase for its Unreal Engine, the Gears of War series which is now owned by The Coalition and Xbox Game Studios, Infinity Blade, Shadow Complex, Bulletstorm, and Fortnite.

Unreal Engine

Epic is the proprietor of five successful game engines in the video game industry. Each Unreal Engine has a complete feature set of graphical rendering, sound processing, and physics that can be widely adapted to fit the specific needs of a game developer that does not want to code their own engine from scratch. The five engines Epic has created are Unreal Engine 1, Unreal Engine 2 (including its 2.5 and 2.X releases), Unreal Engine 3, Unreal Engine 4 and Unreal Engine 5. Epic also provides support to the Unreal marketplace, a digital storefront for creators to sell Unreal assets to other developers. Further, since 2019, Epic has provided support for filmmakers which have utilized the Unreal Engine to create virtual sets for productions such as The Mandalorian, and will be backing major animated feature film production using Unreal, starting with Gilgamesh with studios Hook Up, DuermeVela and FilmSharks.

Epic Games Store

Epic announced its own Epic Games Store, an open digital storefront for games, on December 4, 2018, which launched a few days later with The Game Awards 2018 presentation. Differing from Valve's Steam storefront, which takes 30% of revenues (30/70 revenue-sharing agreement) from the sale of a game, the Epic Game Store will take 12%, as well as foregoing the 5% for games developed in the Unreal Engine, anticipating that these lower revenue-sharing agreements will draw developers to it.

Epic Online Services

Epic Online Services is a free SDK based on Epic's Fortnite code that allows developers to implement cross-platform play features in their games, including matchmaking, friends lists, leaderboards, and achievements, with support for Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android systems. It was first released for all in May 2020. Support for anti-cheat and voice chat was added in June 2021.

Productivity products

Other productivity products include ArtStation, Sketchfab, Twinmotion, RealityCapture, RealityScan and Quixel. Epic and Autodesk partnered in September 2022, making Twinmotion available to Revit subscribers.

The MetaHuman Creator is a project based on technology from three companies acquired by Epic—3Lateral, Cubic Motion, and Quixel—to allow developers to quickly create realistic human characters that can then be exported for use within Unreal. Through partnership with Cesium, Epic plans to offer a free plugin to provide 3D geospatial data for Unreal users, allowing them to recreate any part of the mapped surface of Earth. Epic will include RealityCapture, a product it acquired with its acquisition of Capturing Reality that can generate 3D models of any object from a collection of photographs taken of it from multiple angles, and the various middleware tools offered by Epic Game Tools.

Subsidiaries and divisions

Locations

Name	Location	Founded	Acquired	Ref(s).
Epic Games Australia	Burwood, Australia	2018	—
Epic Games Brasil	Porto Alegre, Brazil	2007	2023
Epic Games China	Shanghai, China	2006	—
Epic Games Germany	Berlin, Germany	2016
Epic Games Japan	Yokohama, Japan	2010
Epic Games Korea	Seoul, South Korea	2009
Epic Games Montreal	Montreal , Canada	2018
Epic Games Publishing	—	2020
Epic Games Seattle	Bellevue, Washington, US	2012
Epic Games Stockholm	Stockholm, Sweden	2018
Epic Games San Francisco	San Francisco , US	2012
Epic Games UK	Sunderland, England	2014

Subsidiaries

Name	Area	Location	Founded	Acquired	Ref(s).
3Lateral	Motion capture digitization	Novi Sad, Serbia	2008	2019
ArtStation	Professional artist marketplace	Montreal , Canada	2014	2021
Capturing Reality	Photogrammetry software	Bratislava, Slovakia	2015	2021
Cubic Motion	Facial animation	Manchester, England	2009	2020
Harmonix	Music game developer	Boston, Massachusetts	1995	2021
Psyonix	Video game development	San Diego, US	2000	2019
Quixel	Photogrammetry assets	Uppsala, Sweden	2011	2019
Epic Game Tools (formerly RAD Game Tools)	Game middleware	Bellevue, Washington	1988	2021
Sketchfab	3D model marketplace	Paris, France	2012	2021
Tonic Games Group (Mediatonic)	Video game development	London, England	2005	2021

Former

Name	Location	Founded	Acquired	Divested	Fate	Ref.
Agog Labs	Vancouver , Canada	2013	2019		Software development moved internally to Epic Games.
Bandcamp	Oakland, US	2008	2022	2023	Sold to Songtradr
Chair Entertainment	Salt Lake City, US	2005	2008	Unknown	Closed
Cloudgine	Edinburgh, Scotland	2012	2018		Software development moved internally to Epic Games.
Hyprsense	Burlingame, California	2015	2020		Software development moved internally to Epic Games.
Impossible Studios	Baltimore, US	2012	—	2013	Closed	Template:Centered
Kamu	Helsinki, Finland	2013	2018		Software development moved internally to Epic Games.
Life on Air	San Francisco , US	2012	2019		Software development moved internally to Epic Games.
People Can Fly (Epic Games Poland)	Warsaw, Poland	2002	2012	2015	Sold to management	Template:Centered
RAD Games Tools	Kirkland, Washington, US	1988	2021		Software development moved internally to Epic Games.
SuperAwesome	London, England	2013	2020	2023	Spun off

Legal issues

Litigation with Silicon Knights

On July 19, 2007, Canadian game studio Silicon Knights sued Epic Games for failure to "provide a working game engine", causing the Ontario-based game developer to "experience considerable losses". The suit alleged that Epic Games was "sabotaging" Unreal Engine 3 licensees. Epic's licensing document stated that a working version of the engine would be available within six months of the Xbox 360 developer kits being released. Silicon Knights claimed that Epic missed this deadline and that when a working version of the engine was eventually released, the documentation was insufficient. The game studio also claimed Epic had withheld vital improvements to the game engine, claiming they were game-specific, while also using licensing fees to fund the development of its own titles rather than the engine itself.

In August 2007, Epic Games counter-sued Silicon Knights, alleging the studio was aware when it signed on that certain features of Unreal Engine 3 were still in development and that components would continue to be developed and added as Epic completed work on Gears of War. Therefore, in a statement, Epic said that "SK knew when it committed to the licensing agreement that Unreal Engine 3 may not meet its requirements and may not be modified to meet them". Additionally, the counter-suit claimed that Silicon Knights had "made unauthorized use of Epic's Licensed Technology" and had "infringed and otherwise violated Epic's intellectual property rights, including Epic's copyrighted works, trade secrets, know how and confidential information" by incorporating Unreal Engine 3 code into its own engine, the Silicon Knights Engine. Furthermore, Epic asserted the Canadian developer broke the contract when it employed this derivative work in an internal title and a second game with Sega, a partnership for which it never received a license fee.

On May 30, 2012, Epic Games defeated Silicon Knights' lawsuit and won its counter-suit for $4.45 million on grounds of copyright infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, and breach of contract, an injury award that was later doubled due to prejudgment interest, attorneys' fees and costs. Consistent with Epic's counterclaims, the presiding judge, James C. Dever III, stated that Silicon Knights had "deliberately and repeatedly copied thousands of lines of Epic Games' copyrighted code, and then attempted to conceal its wrongdoing by removing Epic Games' copyright notices and by disguising Epic Games' copyrighted code as Silicon Knights' own". Dever stated that evidence against Silicon Knights was "overwhelming", as it not only copied functional code but also "non-functional, internal comments Epic Games' programmers had left for themselves".

As a result, on November 7, 2012, Silicon Knights was directed by the court to destroy all game code derived from Unreal Engine 3, all information from licensee-restricted areas of Epic's Unreal Engine documentation website, and to permit Epic Games access to the company's servers and other devices to ensure these items have been removed. In addition, the studio was instructed to recall and destroy all unsold retail copies of games built with Unreal Engine 3 code, including Too Human, X-Men Destiny, The Sandman, The Box/Ritualyst, and Siren in the Maelstrom (the latter three titles were projects never released, or even officially announced).

On May 16, 2014, Silicon Knights filed for bankruptcy and a Certificate of Appointment was issued by the office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, with Collins Barrow Toronto Limited being appointed as trustee in bankruptcy.

Apple and Google disputes

Since as early as 2017, Tim Sweeney had questioned the need for digital storefronts like Valve's Steam, Apple's iOS App Store, and Google Play, to take a 30% revenue sharing cut, and argued that when accounting for current rates of content distribution and other factors needed, a revenue cut of 8% should be sufficient to run any digital storefront profitably. When Epic brought Fortnite Battle Royale to mobile devices, the company initially offered a sideloaded package for Android systems to bypass the Google Play store, but eventually also made it a store app.

On August 13, 2020, Epic Games updated Fortnite across all platforms, including the iOS and Android versions, to reduce the price of "V-Bucks" (the in-game currency) by 20% if they purchased directly from Epic. For iOS and Android users, if they purchased through the Apple or Google storefront, they were not given this discount, as Epic said they could not extend the discount due to the 30% revenue cut taken by Apple and Google. Within hours, both Apple and Google had removed Fortnite from their storefronts stating the means of bypassing their payment systems violated the terms of service. Epic immediately filed separate lawsuits against Apple and Google for antitrust and anticompetitive behavior in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Epic did not seek monetary damages in either case but instead was "seeking injunctive relief to allow fair competition in these two key markets that directly affect hundreds of millions of consumers and tens of thousands, if not more, of third-party app developers." In comments on social media the next day, Sweeney said that they undertook the actions as "we're fighting for the freedom of people who bought smartphones to install apps from sources of their choosing, the freedom for creators of apps to distribute them as they choose, and the freedom of both groups to do business directly. The primary opposing argument is: 'Smartphone markers [sic] can do whatever they want.' This is an awful notion. We all have rights, and we need to fight to defend our rights against whoever would deny them."

Apple responded to the lawsuit that it would terminate Epic's developer accounts by August 28, 2020, leading Epic to file a motion for a preliminary injunction to force Apple to return Fortnite to the App Store and prevent them from terminating Epic's developer accounts, as the latter action would leave Epic unable to update the Unreal Engine for any changes to iOS or macOS and leave developers that relied on Unreal at risk. The court granted the preliminary injunction against Apple from terminating the developer accounts as Epic had shown "potential significant damage to both the Unreal Engine platform itself, and to the gaming industry generally", but refused to grant the injunction related to Fortnite as "The current predicament appears of [Epic's] own making." In September 2020, Epic Games, together with thirteen other companies, launched the Coalition for App Fairness, which aimed for better conditions for the inclusion of apps into app stores.

U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued her first ruling on Epic Games v. Apple on September 10, 2021. Rogers found in favor of Apple on nine of ten counts brought up against them in the case, including Epic's charges related to Apple's 30% revenue cut and Apple's prohibition against third-party marketplaces on the iOS environment. Rogers did rule against Apple on the final charge related to anti-steering provisions, and issued a permanent injunction that, in 90 days from the ruling, blocked Apple from preventing developers from linking app users to other storefronts from within apps to complete purchases or from collecting information within an app, such as an email, to notify users of these storefronts. Rogers' ruling was upheld at the Ninth Circuit on appeals, and the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear the case, leaving Rogers' order against Apple in place.

Google initially sought to negotiate with Epic but later filed their own countersuit against Epic for breach of contract. The Google case was set as a jury trial, held in November and December 2023. Prior to this, other groups had filed their own lawsuits against Google for similar reasons as Epic, including a coalition of states and the Match Group, but these were settled just ahead of the trial. The jury found for Epic on all claims made, determining that Google maintained a monopoly on the Android marketplace by how it managed the Play Store and used its leverage as a big tech firm to make deal with partners, including some deals made as a result of the earlier settlements. A second phase of this trial to determine remedies is scheduled to occur in January 2024.

FTC child privacy settlement

In December 2022, Epic Games was fined a combined $520 million after the Federal Trade Commission accused the company of separate accounts related to Fortnite, one for violating COPPA related to children's privacy by collecting personal data without parent or guardian consent, exposing children and teens to potential harassment, and a second related to misleading users into making unwanted purchases while playing the game. Epic Games said "No developer creates a game with the intention of ending up here. The laws have not changed, but their application has evolved and long-standing industry practices are no longer enough. We accepted this agreement because we want Epic to be at the forefront of consumer protection and provide the best experience for our players. Over the past few years, we've been making changes to ensure our ecosystem meets the expectations of our players and regulators, which we hope will be a helpful guide for others in our industry."

Criticism

Since the partial investment by the Chinese company Tencent, some consumers have become wary of Epic Games' reliability and use of their data, particularly in relationship with the Epic Games Store. These concerns have been connected to broader issues of general distrust of the Chinese government and Chinese corporations among some Western video game players. Epic has stated that Tencent does not have access to any of this private data nor provides this to the Chinese government.

In late March 2020, accusations began circulating on social media that the Epic Games social networking app Houseparty led to other services such as Netflix and Spotify being hacked. However, both Epic and Life on Air claimed this was a smear campaign against its product and offered a $1 million bounty for anyone able to substantiate their claim.

Further reading

• Keighley, Geoffrey. "Blinded By Reality: The True Story Behind the Creation of Unreal". http://www.gamespot.com/features/makeunreal/. 
• Berardini, César A. (June 30, 2005). "Everything You Wanted to Know About Unreal". http://features.teamxbox.com/xbox/1199/Everything-You-Wanted-to-Know-About-Unreal/p1/. 
• Porter, Will (October 26, 2007). "The Epic tradition". https://www.gamesradar.com/the-epic-tradition/. 
• Blancato, Joe (May 13, 2008). "Epic's Rainmakers". http://v1.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/issues/issue_149/4896-Epic-s-Rainmakers. 
• Edwards, Benj (May 25, 2009). "From The Past To The Future: Tim Sweeney Talks". https://gamasutra.com/view/feature/132426/from_the_past_to_the_future_tim_.php. 
• Totilo, Stephen (December 7, 2011). "The Quiet Tinkerer Who Makes Games Beautiful Finally Gets His Due". https://kotaku.com/the-quiet-tinkerer-who-makes-games-beautiful-finally-ge-5865951. 
• Plante, Chris (April 2, 2012). "Better with age: A history of Epic Games". https://www.polygon.com/2012/10/1/3438196/better-with-age-a-history-of-epic-games. 
• Freeman, Will (August 12, 2013). "Development Legends: An Unreal tale". https://www.mcvuk.com/development-legends-an-unreal-tale/. 
• Crecente, Brian (May 1, 2016). "Their future is Epic: The evolution of a gaming giant". https://www.polygon.com/a/epic-4-0. 
• Huddleston, Tom Jr. (August 9, 2018). "'Fortnite' launched battle royale a year ago today – here's how the company behind the billion-dollar game was founded by a college kid". https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/12/epic-games-company-behind-fortnite-was-founded-by-a-college-kid.html. 
• Griffith, Erin (August 25, 2020). "To Fight Apple and Google's Grip, Fortnite Creator Mounts a Crusade". https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/technology/fortnite-creator-tim-sweeney-apple-google.html.